About Tuesday Weld

 

“Tuesday's 15 going on 27.” Danny Kaye, The Five Pennies

 

“I didn't have to play Lolita. I was Lolita.” Tuesday Weld, 1970

 

“Miss Weld is not a very good representative for the motion picture industry.” Louella Parsons

 

“I don't like interviews because your brain can be picked. That isn't nice anywhere–even in a living room.” Tuesday Weld, 1972.

 

“Tuesday is a great natural actress.” George Axelord, Lord Love a Duck

 

“I hated Mama. I didn't feel really free until she died. Otherwise her death didn't really affect me much…. Tuesday Weld, l969

 

“I wasn't really mad at Tuesday until she started telling everyone I was dead. I didn't like being called dead.” Tuesday's mother, 1971

 

“She took my childhood away from me. I became the supporter of the family, and I had to take my father's place in many, many ways. I was expected to make up for everything that had gone wrong with in Mama's life.” Tuesday Weld, 1969

 

“We've very few friends. We live in sort of isolation. She's almost paranoid about public life. She just prefers to stay home.” Dudley Moore, at the time he was Tuesday's husband

 

Part Two

Hitting bottom

 

In the 1970s, Tuesday's life hit bottom. Her house in California had just burned down and she had taken to walking close to 10 miles a day. She admitted to drinking heavily and was obviously at loose ends. Tuesday had not decided yet where to live, deliberating between L.A., N.Y., and even Europe. Fearing that she couldn't do all that and give a firm base to her daughter, she decided to stay in L.A.

 

Tuesday continued to give ferocious interviews that irritated the press. Asked about women's liberation, she said: “I don't think it's women's liberation. I think it's men's liberation. Because we've always been the provider in that area and I'm getting tired of it and I don't see why men should be the providers.”

 

Play It As It Lays

 

The 1972 Play It As It Lays, directed by Frank Perry, could not have occurred at a better juncture in Tuesday's life. Co-scripted by Joan Didion and husband John Gregory Dunne, from Didion's novel, its cast included Anthony Perkins, Tammy Grimes, Adam Roarke, Ruth Ford and Chuck McCann. Tuesday played Maria Wyeth, a Hollywood actress who had a nervous breakdown, an abortion, a divorce–and an autistic daughter who's in an institution. Alienated from life, Maria spends her time aimlessly, driving the freeways, visiting her ex-husband on his film set.

Tuesday was always Perry's first choice. She was widely quoted at the time as saying “I could phone it in.” However, this was not Tuesday's feeling about the role. Although she knew the ground covered in the picture, she insisted the part “has nothing to do with my life and my past. And I'm not that personality at all. I'm not typecast for it.” Asked if she liked her role, Tuesday said, “Who could like it It's not a part I relished playing. It went against my personal feelings of life. And I had to think about the state I would be in. It was unsettling.”

 

Although Tuesday won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival, Play It As It Lays was not well-received by American critics. Still, Tuesday was proud of her work. Explaining her approach to the character, she said: “Maria doesn't have wide outward emotional range. All her levels are in a box. Even when they hit top, there's no escape.”

 

The film offered a different Tuesday from the one the public was used seeing. The role was difficult: Tuesday played a woman who has become numb to life, shutting off her feelings in an effort to escape pain. Surely she could not be expected to portray Maria Wyeth with the ebullience of a teenager; the character could not be acted in the same way as Sue Ann Stepanek. A sensitive portrait of a woman who has been overwhelmed by awareness of the emptiness of much of contemporary existence, Maria marked the emergence of a more mature Tuesday.

 

Wishing her mother dead

 

About this time, the long-standing tension between Tuesday and her mother erupted in the press. Tuesday began telling people that her mother had died: “I hated Mama. I don't feel really free until she died. Otherwise her death didn't really affect me much.” She then added, for good measure, “Mama is already back here, wandering around doing something. I hope as a puppy dog.”

The “incident” was shocking news to Mrs. Weld, who was residing in a small Hollywood apartment, making a living as a baby-sitter to newly-weds, Patty Duke and John Austin. “Why, if it hadn't been for Patty Duke, I might have starved for death–that's how much help Tuesday's been.” Mrs. Weld said she wasn't really mad at her daughter “until she started telling everyone I was dead. I didn't like being called dead.”

 

The roots of the problem go back to Tuesday's work as a child model. In “Most of all, Tuesday Remembers Mama,” A N.Y. Times interview, Tuesday said: “She took my childhood away from me. I became the supporter of the family, and I had to take my father's place in many, many ways. I was expected to make up for everything that had gone wrong with in Mama's life. She became obsessed with me, pouring out all her pent-up love–alleged love–on me. It's been heavy on my shoulders ever since.”

 

The Marrying Kind

 

In 1975, Tuesday married British comedian-actor Dudley Moore–she claims she can't remember the exact date! The couple had a son, Patrick, and lived in Malibu. Moore said at the time: “We've very few friends. We live in sort of isolation. She's almost paranoid about public life. She just prefers to stay home.” It was not a particularly good marriage and the couple divorced in l979.

However, her next marriage, to world-renowned conductor and violinist Pinchas Zukerman, brought a measure of stability to her life. It was the second marriage for Zukerman, who is younger than Tuesday by seven years. They're still happily married.

Tuesday is the mother of 39-year old Natasha, by her first marriage to writer Claude Harz, and 30-year-old Patrick, by her marriage to Dudley Moore.